265. Christopher Blattman on Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace
The Michael Shermer Show
Michael Shermer
4.3 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 23 April 2022
⏱️ 104 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Shermer and Blattman discuss: Putin, Russia, and Ukraine • game theory and violent conflict • 5 Reasons for conflict and war • common elements of conflict in Medellin, Chicago, Sudan, Somalia, etc. • U.S. foreign policy in Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and elsewhere, and its consequences • human nature and conflict: are we wired to fight or do environments push us into conflicts? • cooperation vs. competition / selfish genes vs. collection action problems • inner demons and better angels • violence and wars in our paleolithic ancestors • why violence has declined over the centuries • Chicago as a test case for theories of conflict and peace • why gangs, groups, and even nations mostly avoid conflict and war because of its consequences • and whether international aid and economic development attenuate violence.
Dr. Christopher Blattman is the Ramalee E. Pearson Professor of Global Conflict Studies (University of Chicago), where he coleads the Development Economics Center and directs the Obama Foundation Scholars program. His work on violence, crime, and poverty has been widely covered by the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Forbes, Slate, Vox, and NPR.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | You're listening to theurmer Show. |
| 0:17.0 | Welcome to the Michael Schurmer Show. I'm your host. Michael Schurmer. My guest today is Christopher Blotman. |
| 0:21.0 | His new book is Why We Fight, |
| 0:24.4 | Subtitled The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace. |
| 0:29.9 | Christopher is the Ramalee E Pearson professor of global conflict studies at the University of Chicago |
| 0:38.4 | where he co-leaders the Development Economic Center and directs the Obama Foundation's Scholars Program. |
| 0:45.0 | His work on violence, crime, and poverty has been widely covered by the New York Times, |
| 0:51.0 | The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Forbes, |
| 0:54.3 | Slate, and NPR. So we cover, well, the exact title and subtitle of the book. |
| 1:01.3 | Why do people fight, not just wars, but conflicts of all sizes and kinds. |
| 1:06.6 | He mainly discusses group conflicts, so he's not studying homicides in this particular book but the the roots are largely in five |
| 1:18.0 | different stages so we go through what those five causes are that leads to conflict between groups and then as the |
| 1:26.7 | subtitle says the paths to peace he has ten commandments in the final chapter |
| 1:32.1 | of what it takes to get there. |
| 1:34.1 | As you'll hear, there are no simple solutions. There's no utopian ideological overreaching |
| 1:47.6 | theory that explains everything. In fact, because Christopher's personal research involves often going to these places where there is conflict. It shows that simple ideas |
| 1:56.4 | almost never work, every situation is different, but he nevertheless is |
| 2:01.4 | still able to derive out of that certain principles that you can try to apply elsewhere. |
| 2:06.5 | It may or may not work, but at least they have a better than random chance of working. |
| 2:10.7 | Let me go through all the details on that and as well it's some of the big issues that I'm always |
| 2:15.6 | interested in, the nature of human nature. Did we evolve to be highly in conflict with each other? |
| 2:22.3 | Or are we by nature cooperative? |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Michael Shermer, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Michael Shermer and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.